I think he was Aged 34 and his parents were Carlo De Milita and Caterina Alberti and there was some connection with Santa Fe. That's about all I understand. Thanks for any help.

On July 23, 1890 at 11:30 a.m. a letter was received in this town from the tribunal (court) in Potenza about the act of death received last April from the vicar of the city of Santa Fe. He certified that on page 274 on April 21,1890, the body of Francesco De Milita was buried in the Catholic cemetery of this city of Santa Fe*. He was the legitimate son of Carlo De Milita and Caterina Alberti. He was Italian, age 34. He died today from "febbre di poidea(?). The word febbre refers to a fever but I can't find a translation of the other word. The letter was a translation of the original, which I would have been in Spanish. He is referring to Santa Fe in Argentina, South America, but that info is not specifically in the record, as far as I can tell.

Erudita, thank you so much for this translation and for taking the time to type all this information out. I so appreciate it. It is very interesting and I am almost jumping out of my socks with excitement because after almost completing the online records for Saponara di Grumento, that I have access to, I have finally located a De Milita who moved to another country. I know that there were others as well. Anyways, thank you so much again Erudita.

Can someone please now either help me locate a travel record/passenger list for Francesco’s trip from Italy to Argentina or point me in the right direction. I’m not having much luck looking myself so far. I am curious to know what his occupation was, when he went to Argentina, what brought him there, whether or not he was married at the time – but even just a travel record for him would be fantastic for now.

I looked at the original Spanish record and noted that for Francesco’s spouse it just had Luisa N.... followed by some words in Spanish which I couldn't decipher. Maybe one of the words was Spanish for “alien”. Not sure. I haven’t been able to find any marriage record for Francesco and Luisa in the Saponara di Grumento records so if she was Italian she possiblly lived in one of the surrounding towns.)

AngelaGrace56 wrote:Can someone please now either help me locate a travel record/passenger list for Francesco’s trip from Italy to Argentina or point me in the right direction. I’m not having much luck looking myself so far. I am curious to know what his occupation was, when he went to Argentina, what brought him there, whether or not he was married at the time – but even just a travel record for him would be fantastic for now.

I looked at the original Spanish record and noted that for Francesco’s spouse it just had Luisa N.... followed by some words in Spanish which I couldn't decipher. Maybe one of the words was Spanish for “alien”. Not sure. I haven’t been able to find any marriage record for Francesco and Luisa in the Saponara di Grumento records so if she was Italian she possiblly lived in one of the surrounding towns.)

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

I've never studied Spanish but can read some of the marriage record. She was a native of Argentina. I can't make out where the spouse had been born though. Neither had been previously married. After Luisa N... the last word I see is apellido, which is the Spanish word for "surname," but I can't read what precedes that. The Spanish word for "without" would be "sin," but I don't think that is the beginning of what precedes the word apellido. However, I found the following, which is possibly Luisa's death record info.

In reading through this Luisa's death record, it says that she was without affiliation and other information (in other words, her parents were unknown and any other information about her was also unknown). She was buried in this Catholic cemetery of the city of Santa Fe. So possibly this is the death record for the wife of Francesco De Milita.

There used to be an online databank of Italians to Argentina with their passenger ship info and occupations, but that website hasn't worked in a very long time. I thought there was a replacement site for it, but I can't seem to find it. Possibly someone else on the forum knows what the URL is for that website, and if it is still working.

Thank you for looking into this for me Erudita and for all this great feedback. I really appreciate it.

This is proving to be quite an interesting story. How bizarre that Luisa’s surname was unknown. I’m actually wondering whether Luisa and Francesco were actually married? There is a discrepancy with Catalina’s birth year (it is given as approximately 1889). Luisa’s date of death is August 1888, (before Catalina’s birth). I’m thinking that possibly Luisa may have died either giving birth to Catalina or due to complications following the birth. Very tragic for Catalina – her father dies approximately 21 months later and she is left with no family connections in Argentina. I wonder who raised Catalina? Lots of questions here. I’ll look for Catalina’s birth certificate.

I wonder why Catalina and Domingo’s marriage record didn’t record Luisa and Domenico as deceased? (Maybe they don’t do that in Argentina like our Italian records.)

I popped into one of our libraries today after my post and before your post in the hope that I might find out more information using the library computers and resources. I didn’t exactly find what I was hoping BUT I did come across a death record for a Vincenzo De Milita who is most probably Francesco’s brother. The index just said "Vincenzo De Milita fu Carlo". I found the record and it looked like this possible brother died in Venezula. (Maybe they left Italy together and eventually went their separate ways?) I’ll post Vincenzo’s details on a separate thread shortly.

They were all farmers. They departed Italy from either Genoa or Naples. The letter C is for the word casada, meaning married, the ship names in the entries above are Bearn and Poitou. The word desconocido is under the category of the their places of birth and means "unknown" You can extend the dates on a search and get more hits. I believe this is the replacement site for the site which used to be called "le tue radici" or "your roots." You can only search for variations in spelling of a surname if you keep changing the spelling yourself.

There is a Caterina Alberti, age 62, who arrived in Argentina on Nov 23, 1886 aboard the Orione. Her place of birth is unknown, she was married, but without a profession. Her age is right to have been Francesco's mother (although there is no way to know for certain since the destinations of passengers are not given in the database). This may, however, be a clue to a marriage date for him, as possibly his mother went to Argentina to attend his wedding, if he married there. I'm just brainstorming though. It's a possibility which I can't yet prove.

erudita74 wrote:There is a Caterina Alberti, age 62, who arrived in Argentina on Nov 23, 1886 aboard the Orione. Her place of birth is unknown, she was married, but without a profession. Her age is right to have been Francesco's mother (although there is no way to know for certain since the destinations of passengers are not given in the database). This may, however, be a clue to a marriage date for him, as possibly his mother went to Argentina to attend his wedding, if he married there. I'm just brainstorming though. It's a possibility which I can't yet prove.

Erudita

Thanks for this Erudita. I admire your tenacity and I love “brainstorming”. Unfortunately I don’t think this Caterina Demilita is (my) Francesco Demilita’s mother.

We have established that: “He (Francesco) was the legitimate son of Carlo De Milita and Caterina Alberti.” I have checked my Demilita file and I have a Death Record for Caterina (Raffaela) Alberti, wife of Carlo Demilita dated “1879”. She was born approx 1813 so would have been approx 73 in 1886. So (my) Caterina had already died by 1886.

Thank you also for the previous post and the links included there. I have a brief commitment shortly but will have a reread of all the info you have provided, ponder it all and follow up on the links. Fantastic to have those.

I couldn’t see any birth records for Argentina on Family Search last evening but they now have Baptism records there (since last week I think). Searched for Catalina’s baptism record but drew a blank – for now anyway.

marriage record for Catalina Di Milita to Andres Garcia on Oct 27, 1917. It doesn't list her as a widow; it just lists her as single-soltera. It does list her as the legitimate daughter of Francisco Demilita (then it says Espana for Spain) and Luisa (no other info about her.

If the above link doesn't work, it is Matrimoni 1911-1920, image 209 of 283. This record doesn't come up by searching the Santa Re records for the parish.

The baptism and marriage records for this parish only start in 1889, which is a problem, since Francesco's marriage record and Catalina's baptism record would be pre 1889. Her baptism is not in the index for 1889 for this parish.

I also checked the baptism and marriage indices for the Catedral Todos los Santos where Francesco's death record was found. There is no DeMilita or Milita in either of those indices, so his marriage and Catalina's baptism did not take place in that parish, it seems. The only other place would be the Archdiocese of Santa Fe records, but there are no indices, and you would have to go record by record to see if either is there.

Thank you Erudita. So what we are saying then (hopefully I’m not losing the plot here!) is that Catalina married twice?

She married Domingo Sanz when she was aged 25 on 28 November 1914 and then she married Andres Garcia on 27 October, 1917 and it looks like her age is recorded as 29 (but it should really be 27/28).

Catalina may have grown up thinking her father was from Spain – is that right? Let me know if I’m interpreting this information incorrectly please. This is very interesting. Thanks so much.

Re your comment about not listing her as a widow – maybe they just didn’t do that there. We are so lucky with our Italian records, especially the older ones (which I still struggle to interpret) because they have so much detail.

[quote="AngelaGrace56"]Thank you Erudita. So what we are saying then (hopefully I’m not losing the plot here!) is that Catalina married twice?

She married Domingo Sanz when she was aged 25 on 28 November 1914 and then she married Andres Garcia on 27 October, 1917 and it looks like her age is recorded as 29 (but it should really be 27/28).

Catalina may have grown up thinking her father was from Spain – is that right? Let me know if I’m interpreting this information incorrectly please. This is very interesting. Thanks so much.

Re your comment about not listing her as a widow – maybe they just didn’t do that there. We are so lucky with our Italian records, especially the older ones (which I still struggle to interpret) because they have so much detail.

Thanks again.

AngelaI think Catalina was married twice. Unfortunately the death records only go to 1914 and I am looking for a 1916/1917 death record for Domingo Sanz. I checked the baptism indices post 1917 and don't see any other children born to him and Catalina DeMilita, at least not in that parish. The child Leopoldo Rafael Sanz was born on April 4, 1917 and baptized on the 16th. Then there is her marriage to Andres Garcia on Oct 27, 1917. So Domingo could have died anytime after she got pregnant with Leopoldo (Aug 1916, assuming she went full term) and possibly before she actually delivered their son the following April. I was just hoping that there would be an online death record for Domingo to substantiate this, but I don't see any for the years 1916 and 1917.

As to the discrepancy in her ages listed in the 1914 and 1917 marriage records, even though her age in the first record is given as 25 and her age in the second is given as 29, there is actually only 1 year difference in the estimated years of birth. The 1914 record has her age at 25 and therefore estimates her birth year as 1889, and the 1917 has her age at 29 and therefore estimates her birth year as 1888. So regardless of what age is listed for her in these records, the estimated year of birth is very close and, if the Luisa N whose death record I found was her mother, then we know she had to have been born by 1888.

I don't know why in the 1917 record Francesco's place of birth is given as Spain. His 1890 death record says "italiano." Catalina's 1914 marriage record has Espana (Spain) as the place for the spouse Domingo Sanz, and both of his parents, but it has nothing by Francesco and Luisa's names. Since the second husband was also from Spain, it seems likely that it is just an error for Francesco in the 1917 record. Whether Catalina herself grew up thinking she had Spanish and not Italian heritage, I really can't say, but maybe she really didn't know, as her parents seem to have died when she was really young and who knows who actually raised her.